Learn English – Semicolons at the end of list items

commaslistsperiodpunctuationsemicolon

In school, we were taught to end each list item with a semicolon. But I have never actually seen this. Can somebody please confirm this? Should we end each list item with anything at all?

I've seen people use periods after each list item, colons, and even commas. But I've never seen a semicolon at the end of each item — and even if I have, it would be that rare that I've forgotten.

Example:

  • item;
  • item;
  • item;
  • item

Best Answer

As others have said, it's a matter of stylistic choice. The semicolon style is very formal.

Personally, if I was using the semicolon style, I'd go all the way and put an italicised "and" after the penultimate item and a period after the last item, like this:

The items on today's agenda are:

  • item 1;
  • item 2; and
  • item 3.

The idea behind this style is that if you removed the bullets and wrote it all on one line, the sentence would still be grammatically and orthographically correct.

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